A Really Quite Serious Story About Hugging
by Scribbler
Summary: [one shot] Hugging, wrapping your arms around someone and just holding them, just savouring them for being them, taking comfort in something that can be more intimate than even a kiss... [AnzuYuugi]


**Disclaimer: **Bits are mine, except for the bits that aren't. It's kind of obvious which are which.

**A/N: **I really wanted to put in the hug from the Virtual World Arc, since it's canon, but I only remembered about it when I had one spot left, so I went for Egypt instead. Also, the timeline is intentionally jumpy.

**Dedications: **For Azurite (who's been an incredible sport with running both WikiFic and Weekly YGO, and who's deserting us to live in Japan for a while), and MyAibou (who skewed me enough to try writing Peach-flavoured stuff in the first place). I've had some of these bunnies for years, but somehow never got around to writing them. It's thanks to these two that I had enough inspiration to get off my bum and finally do so, even if they didn't realise what they were doing at the time.

**Feedback: **Yes, please!

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_**A Really Quite Serious Story About Hugging**_

© Scribbler, July 2006.

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_When I think of what I've been through,  
I can see that you've always been there for me.  
To tell the truth I don't know what I'd do  
Without you – none of my dreams would have come true._

-- From _It Was You_, by Ashley Ballard with So Plush.

**

* * *

**

**Monday**

When Anzu trips up in the playground, she's expecting the laughter before her splayed palms even hit the blacktop. Kids always laugh at the misfortune of their peers – especially when it's public and _especially_ when it's hot and everyone's already irritable enough to start fights over nothing. The fact that she's the new social pariah is entirely incidental – this time.

As the jittery tension bleeds off around her, redirected by her clumpy new shoes and her inability to walk in them, Anzu bites back tears. Her hands and knees really _hurt_, and she feels humiliated for, like, the millionth time today. In fact, she hasn't felt so bad since last Thursday, when Mikata Teki pulled her chair out from under her after the teacher asked Anzu to read in class. The ache in her tailbone blossoms anew at the memory, as does the knowledge that this will be her fate for the next five days, until the weekend brings another reprieve.

Someone breaks ranks and runs to help her up. Anzu sees the pineapple-shaped hair and accepts the help with both gratefulness and the kind of anger that could so easily become resentment if this keeps up and she's not careful.

Once they're out of sight by the steps behind Mrs. Ishigaki's classroom, she lets the tears flow properly. Yuugi doesn't complain that the top of his head is getting wet; he just stands there like weepy girls are totally outside his ability to deal with a situation. He honestly doesn't know what to do, but the desire to help still rolls off in him in waves. He's almost sweet in that respect, since he'll almost certainly pay for this later. They both will.

Anzu shoves down her bad feelings and wraps him up in a hug, though she only says, "Thanks." Movement is her language.

Yuugi has frozen in her embrace, even more at sea with this than with her crying. "Uh … you're welcome," he says in a high-pitched voice. "But you shouldn't be thanking me. If it weren't for you being nice to me in the first place, this never would've happened - "

"Yuugi, shut up. We're having a moment."

Tentatively, he hugs her back.

It's not only affection making her hold onto him so tight, but Anzu doesn't mention that.

* * *

****

**Tuesday**

Anzu fights her way through the crowd of milling parents at intermission, elbows sharp but words softer and more polite than she would like at this moment. Everyone is so _tall_; even the big brothers and sisters of her classmates tower over her. Miss Odori said babies shouldn't come tonight because they disturb the dancers with their crying, so she's one of the smallest in the whole community centre.

As a stray handbag whops her, she can just espy the _actual _smallest person in the room. He's gripping the seat of his chair on the back row, as if frightened it will buck like a bronco if he doesn't hang on. His face is a picture of ill-concealed anxiety that someone will speak to him. His feet dangle like bird feeders on thin branches, nowhere near the floor.

"Yuugi!"

He jumps up, and if possible looks even more anxious. "H-Hi Anz-" But his timid greeting is cut off by a violent bear hug. "Gmnf!"

Lace from her costume tickles his nose, and he holds in a sneeze – which is decent of him, since she's wearing one of the special tutus Miss Odori keeps for the bi-annual revues and it'd look really horrible covered in snot. Anzu waits a second to make sure the moment really has passed before pulling back and _beaming _at Yuugi.

"What're you _doing_ here?"

"Well," Yuugi says nervously, "you said your mom and dad couldn't come to watch you, and you seemed so sad about it, and I didn't want you to be sad, so … I-I came instead. So you'd have someone in the audience just for you. I know it's not as good as having your mom and dad here, but I just thought …"

Anzu winces at the mention of her parents, who told her they're having a 'trial separation'. They told her a lot of other things, too – grown up things she doesn't really understand beyond the knowledge that her father no longer lives at their house and Grandma Mazaki isn't talking to Mom anymore. Mom works now, too, which is weird. Before, Anzu wasn't even trusted to walk to the store and back, and that's only on the corner. Now she has to get a bus to and from school, and let herself in with her very own key. Sometimes she even has to make dinner for herself, but she's still not allowed to use the stove, so mostly Mom leaves cold stuff and leftovers when work keeps her for the evening.

Like tonight. Mom's schedule didn't let her have time off any evening this week. Likewise, although he'd promised faithfully to be here, Daddy called on Sunday and said that since flooding in the civic hall had moved Anzu's dance revue to the community centre, and since the centre only had a slot for it on a weeknight, not a Saturday as planned, he wouldn't be back in town in time to come watch her. Anzu spent all Monday moping, barely talking to Yuugi at school and trying not to listen to the other girls during the dress rehearsal that evening. She wasn't even aware Yuugi had been _listening_ when she answered his fretful question about what was wrong.

"Are your parents here?" She likes Mr. And Mrs. Mutou. They're kind, and used to let her stay over when the arguments at home got bad. Plus, if they notice them, then they never say anything about her long absences from their son's life.

Yuugi shakes his head.

"Your Grandpa?" He's also kind of nice, although he talks a lot about old stuff and isn't much taller than them. Even though Yuugi insists he's an archaeologist, he runs a game store near the high school, and tries to scare them sometimes about what the uniforms look like. Anzu reckons Yuugi says stuff like that because he's a little embarrassed by how his grandfather acts – except that Yuugi's one of the most painfully truthful people she's ever met, so maybe there's more to the story than she thinks.

These are all thoughts for later, however, as Yuugi shakes his head again.

Anzu frowns. "Oh. So … who'd you come with? I want to thank them for putting themselves out on my account."

"I didn't come with anyone," Yuugi says at last, and in a small voice, like he's making an admission of monumental guilt.

Her frown deepens. "You didn't – then how did you _get_ here?"

"I … snuck out." He scuffs his feet. "I said I wasn't feeling well and went to bed early. Then I went out the back door. I left it on the latch so I can sneak back in again later. Nobody knows I'm gone."

Anzu's jaw hangs slack. "But … but how – Yuugi, you live right across town!"

"I caught the bus. You can call the automated timetable and it tells you routes and how much the fare is."

Domino buses are quite dangerous after dark. Even though Anzu catches them every day, for tonight she was ferried to the community centre by Rei Takenouchi's mother and her aging Mitsubishi. The idea of little, timid Yuugi making the cross-town journey all by himself is positively ludicrous.

"But you don't have any money! Unless…" Anzu feels the bottom drop out of her stomach. "I didn't see you at lunch today …" She thought she just missed him. Whenever the biggest bullies declare an interest, he bolts his food and hides until the bell goes.

Yuugi shrugs, avoiding her eyes. "I wasn't very hungry."

All at once, Anzu feels something she's never felt before. It's a combination of several different emotions: joy, anger, fear, dismay, gratefulness – but above all that, a kind of tingly warmth that makes the palms of her hands and the soles of her feet prickle. She can't put a name to it, but it suffuses her, making her feel good in a way she only _thought _she knew before.

She looks at Yuugi, still reeling from what he's just told her, and feels her opinion of him lift a notch. Never before has she had anyone who would exert him-or-herself this much on her account. She's never had anyone who would act against character, who would lie to those they love, and who love them, just for her – just because she feels _sad_. The girls at school – Those Girls, the girls everyone else wants to be, and whom Anzu _used_ to be a part of – they just take on the world in a prickly huddle, and if you fall behind you're left behind. There's no loyalty with them, no dependability. That's what Anzu always thought friendship is like. You don't count on other people – you _can't_.

But Yuugi …

Anzu learned when she met him that friendship doesn't have to be synonymous with popularity. Now she's learning there are all sorts of other nuances she never knew about, too. She thinks she likes this feeling. She'd like to feel it more often. Fifteen minutes ago dancing on stage was the best feeling she could ever imagine, but now it has a competitor.

She's never had a best friend before.

"Are … are you mad at me?" Yuugi asks, a slight quaver in his voice.

"What? I mean, oh, Yuugi, of course I'm mad at you!"

"Oh. I'm sorry. I just thought … when you said nobody was coming to watch your show …"

"That's not what I meant. I am _so _thrilled that you came to see me, I don't even know what to _say_, but Yuugi, your parents are probably worried sick! Do you really think your Mom wouldn't check on you if you said you weren't feeling well?"

"I … I guess …"

"You bet your butt she would. She's probably frantic – she might think you've been abducted from your bed, or something terrible like that. Did you leave a note?"

"No. I was just going to sneak back in after your show's done. I have bus fare - "

"We'd better call your house right away. Miss Odori has a cell phone, I'm sure she'd let us use it if we tell her it's an emergency." Anzu grabs Yuugi's hand and immediately starts dragging him through the crowd to where she saw her dance teacher by the refreshments table. Yuugi goes meekly along in her wake, until Anzu stops abruptly and rounds on him, spinning on one heel of her pink ballet pump. "You know something, Yuugi?"

"Uh…"

"I don't think I ever knew what having a friend was like until tonight."

"Really? I mean, uh…"

"Yeah. So … thanks. For being my friend." She feels a little guilty saying it, and smothers the feeling by bestowing another quick, fierce hug on him. Then they both disappear into the crowd.

**

* * *

**

**Wednesday**

She sits quietly, just watching him, for a very long time. His lashes are slightly too long, and dark like a painted doll's. They curl delicately onto his cheeks, lending it an angelic air not unlike the paintings of cherubs she's seen in brochures for dance schools in England and America. They usually sit on ceilings, pointing down at the rows of girls in identical leotards and hairgrips; but here she is in a Japanese hospital, looking at one in green percale. You could almost believe his wings fell off while he was sleeping – or perhaps were amputated.

He stirs a little. She sits straighter, absently smoothing her skirt with one hand. She came straight from school and didn't haven't to change, but she's so used to ignoring creeps between classes that the porters and their murmured catcalls were no problem.

"Anzu?" Yuugi says blearily, eyes open now.

She smiles. It hurts the corners of her mouth. "Hey. How're you feeling?"

"Fine." He pulls himself up in the bed, rubbing at his face. An IV of orange liquid – possibly morphine – runs from the back of his hand, reminding her that he isn't a fallen cherub at all, just a regular mortal like everyone else.

Or … not so regular, but that's not the topic of the moment.

"Jounouchi says I should start charging money from every person who asks me that."

"Yeah, that sounds like something he'd say." Anzu nods, bites the inside of her cheek, and smoothes her perfectly flat skirt again. Her spine cricks so far upright she's practically doubled over backwards.

An air of impropriety settles over them in the silence that follows. It's a heavy silence, full of hidden meanings and awkwardly unsaid words. One might be forgiven for thinking them distant acquaintances, brought together by misfortune but little else.

Anzu looks at her nails, studying the cuticles she's picked raw over the past few days – ever since Yuugi was rushed in here, in fact. Everyone had a nervous tick during that first stint in the waiting area, and she can still see each of them clearly in her mind: Jounouchi pacing, Honda swigging coffee after coffee, crushing each polystyrene cup in his fist, Grandpa Mutou touching the knot of his bandana, taking it off and readjusting it so often his wiry hair took on a greasy, well-thumbed tint. And then there was her, perched on the very edge of one hard plastic chair, doling out words of comfort and reassurance while her nails bled into a tissue.

Nobody could understand where Yuugi's _mother_ was in all this, but nobody even brought it up until they knew he was going to be okay. Then Honda and Jounouchi, sensing Grandpa Mutou wasn't in the right frame of mind to answer sensitive questions about his family, cornered Anzu by the chocolate machine. It was quite incisive by their standards to realise that, as Yuugi's oldest friend, she might know stuff they didn't.

She fought their prying at first, but eventually exhaustion and the events of the day, coupled with their annoyingly single-minded tenacity (honestly, if they applied themselves to their studies the way they nagged at her they'd get scholarships into Keio, no problem), wore down her resolve. With a pop like the cork from a champagne bottle, she poured out the story, words emerging so thick and fast she felt like she might very well be foaming at the mouth with them.

She described how the death of Yuugi's father in a road accident had driven Yuugi's mother to reinvent herself from traditional housewife to high-flying businesswoman. Since Mrs. Mutou had been driving on the night of the accident, common belief held that she blamed herself for her husband's death, but since she point blank refused to talk of it – or him – not even her own father really knew. The net result was that she moved away from Yuugi; first in spirit, and then in body when her job took her to a prepaid apartment in the big city. Rather than take him along and leave him with nannies while her gruelling schedule jetted her to conferences around the world, she instead drew up paperwork that meant Yuugi would live with his grandfather in the town they'd all grown up in. Now she saw him maybe once or twice a year, usually on holidays or special occasions.

"But … she wasn't here for his birthday," Jounouchi had pointed out, sounding almost accusing, as though trying to disprove Anzu's story.

Anzu just levelled a pointed look at him and didn't say anything. He and Honda shut up after that. Jounouchi understands about parental rejection, and Honda … Anzu isn't sure what Honda's angle on all this is. He comes from a pretty normal family – two parents, house, sister, nephew, dog – and the bombsite personal histories of his friends must intimidate him, because he never talks about his own home life. It's as if he's ashamed of being so well adjusted.

Afterwards, when she'd had time to reflect, Anzu felt bad about saying anything. She hadn't wanted to tell them because it felt like a betrayal of some great confidence, but Yuugi has never specifically _said_ she shouldn't mention that part of his life. He's never sat her down and told her he doesn't want his new friends knowing about the weird relationship with his mother. It's just … never come up before. Actually, neither Jounouchi nor Honda has ever asked after it before. She supposes that with Jounouchi's unpleasant family set-up, the whole topic is kind of a taboo for them, and they extended that taboo when they hooked up with Yuugi and Anzu.

Still, the story _feels _private – a confidence Yuugi shares with her, like a last reminder of the time when he needed no other friends than her, and she … didn't have to work so hard to think of herself as important in his life – didn't have to think about being _replaced _by more suitable friends. Maybe it's selfish, and she hates that she can feel that way when he's lying in the hospital and it's not even _her _story, but there it is. Just another indication that Yuugi doesn't need her as much as he used to. Next thing you know, he won't even be walking to school with her –

"Are … you okay?" Yuugi asks, snapping her back to the present.

"Fine," Anzu says brightly. "I was just … y'know. Making sure. About you. That you were okay."

Yuugi stares at her for a second. "I'm fine," he says finally. "I'll be out in a few days. Honda said the people who own the warehouse have collected on the insurance, too. Accidental fire damage. Everything worked out okay in the end."

Anzu nods, ignoring the swatches of bandages still around him. They aren't bloodstained, or coloured with yellow pus from burst blisters, but their glaring whiteness is just as menacing as when he was oozing evidence of his narrow escape. "Listen, I'm-I'm pretty parched. I'm going to go get something to drink – you want anything?"

"No, I'm good." Yuugi inclines his head at the glass and jug of water on his bedside table.

"Oh. Yeah. Right."

Anzu stands up and goes to the door, and if she'd gone at that moment, that _second_, she would've missed the arrival of her anger. But no, she meets it when she starts to turn the handle and it staggers in, gasping and panting, worn out from the cross-town journey. _Sorry I'm late_, it wheezes, clutching its chest. _Awful traffic, and the soccer team were running around in those tight shorts again. But I'm here now, and it looks like I'm just in the nick of time …_ And with that she rounds on the bed with sudden fury.

"No. No, everything did _not _work out okay in the end," she snaps. "Yuugi Mutou, you damn near got yourself _killed _the other day. I've sat on my hands and bitten my tongue until now, but enough is enough. The Millennium Puzzle is a precious, wonderful thing, and I can understand you wanting to save it. Damn me for saying so, but I _can _understand that. I can even understand you wanting to put it back together so Yami wouldn't be trapped. But you nearly _died_, Yuugi. You act like it's no big deal, but it _is_. You. Nearly. _Died. _Do you have any idea how _worried _we've been? And here you are, blowing it all off like … like it was just a bad test score or something! How do you think we would've felt if Jounouchi and Honda hadn't got to you in time? How do you think that would've made us feel? How do you think that would've made _me _feel? You're my best friend in the whole world, and we've been through a lot together, but so help me, Yuugi, if you _ever_ do anything so _stupid _again, I'll put you in the hospital _myself_."

Yuugi's eyes are huge. He stares at her with something approaching terror. "Anzu, I…"

"Don't, Yuugi." Anzu drops her gaze, her fury leeching out through her shoes almost as quickly as it arrived. The soles of her feet feel unfeasibly warm, and she can imagine thin tendrils of anger curling away into the linoleum, creeping through electrical ports until they're finally grounded in the earth. "Just … don't. Don't say you're sorry. Don't try to ask for forgiveness. Don't apologise. You don't apologise for getting hurt. You don't… We… we nearly lost you, and … and I've never been so scared of anything in my entire life…"

She falters, and then dashes across to hug him so tight he gasps at the flares of pain where he was burned.

Immediately she backs off again, flustered. "Oh hell, Yuugi, I didn't think, I – I just – hell. Damn." She grabs the door handle again and wrenches it open, but pauses at the last second. "I told them. Jounouchi and Honda. I told them … about your Mom and Dad." At his silence she adds, "I'm sorry," and then bolts down the corridor, down the stairs, out of the hospital and into the sunshine.

The brightness hurts her eyes.

* * *

****

**Thursday**

She's the first to embrace him, and that's okay, because it feels right. _He _feels right: not all bony angles and tense jawline like he was in the desert.

"It's you," she mumbles into his shoulder, not caring that small pebbles are digging into her knees, or that Seto Kaiba can see her bawling like a total girl. "It's really you."

Yuugi's hands flail a little behind her back. She's caught him off guard, like a rugby player barrelling into another body from out of nowhere, hard, fast and brutal.

Her tears are just as brutal, declaring to the world just how stressful the past couple of days have been, and how difficult it's been to hold everything together when all she wants to do is fall apart and stare at the wall until things resolve themselves. Her tears call attention to her own selfishness, but she just can't help letting them fall.

Except that things never resolve themselves on their own. They always need pushing and shoving, bullying into the form they should be, the niche they should occupy. People need dragging into the light, darkness needs defeating, reassurances need to be given, and none of it is the least bit heroic while it's actually happening to you. Epic poems leave out the non-dramatic parts, but those are actually the most difficult, and it usually falls to the bit-players to play clean-up while the hero cavorts about conquering bad guys and saving the planet.

She can't carry it all. She can't be heroic. She's tried, but fate just keeps piling it on, again and again, one crisis after another that threatens to rip up her life and mail her the pieces. She's been so _scared_ that things have changed forever, that she can't _fix _things with a pretty speech about friendship this time. More and more adversity, like she's not already drowning under it – like they're not _all_ drowning under it.

The emotional fallout out has been … intense, to say the least. She doesn't think she'll _ever _forget the burned-on image of Yami trying to throttle Haga, or Jounouchi's body, slumped like a sack of dirty laundry or a forgotten scoop of ice cream melting in the heat.

Yuugi smells like sand and sweat. His neck is warm, and he's saying something, but she's too lost in this sudden resolution of the biggest problem they've been facing.

He's back. He's not dead. He's here, and real – real as a solar eclipse, a piece of rock, a field of poppies. Real as a friendly face in a room full of strangers. He's safe, rescued, here in her arms, and she never wants to let him go again for as long as she lives –

Which might be about thirty seconds if this cavern collapses on them.

Still …

"It's you. It's really _you_."

* * *

****

**Friday**

_Oh for …_ Vivien Wong gives a whole new meaning to the phrase 'elephant skin'. She just can't take a _hint_.

"Yuugi," the older duellist croons, cupping his chin with one hand. "You look tired. Though I'm not surprised after that duel with Leon. You fought so _well_; it was simply _stunning _to watch. Got me quite hot and bothered."

Anzu narrows her eyes. Slow rage percolates in her gut. Vivien's actually _mauling _him, and in front of everyone, too. Does she have _no _standards? Jounouchi and Honda look thrilled to be so near an uninhibited hottie, but Rebecca looks about as pleased as Anzu herself. Both girls have lips drawn tight like the strings of a miser's purse, and for a second they bond through a shared glance no man would ever understand if he found himself on the receiving end of it.

Yuugi, for his part, looks absolutely petrified.

Anzu clears her throat. "Uh, how about we get you a cool drink, then?" she suggests.

Vivien simply tosses her head. Her hair swishes like something in a L'Oreal commercial, all glossiness and strategic lighting. "Not _that_ kind of hot, sweetie. But then, I guess you're too young and inexperienced to understand this sort of thing."

The dial twists up on Anzu's rage. She can feel an angry retort in her throat, but Rebecca beats her to it.

"Trust you to know all about vulgarity, _Viv_."

"I'm not vulgar, I just appreciate the finer things in life."

"Puh-lease. If I didn't know you were a duellist, I'd swear you were a -"

Yuugi winces. Nose three inches from Vivien's left breast, he casts a helpless look at Anzu, since neither Jounouchi nor Honda will lift a finger to remove him from the situation. Sometimes Anzu wishes they weren't so obviously full of teenage boy hormones. Especially since she has _no _idea how to extricate Yuugi without it looking like she has a romantic interest in him _herself_ – something the guys would never let her live down. Yuugi's half-hearted crush on her is manageable only if she pretends it doesn't exist.

Vivien and Rebecca stare at each other like a couple of multinational companies playing hostile takeovers. Jounouchi and Honda watch eagerly, no doubt assessing how well a tight dress like Vivien's would stand up to a catfight. The stakes are even higher since Rebecca, though too young to ogle, isn't above fighting dirty, and the fabric of Vivian's costume looks quite thin.

And in the middle of it all … is Yuugi.

Yuugi, who looks exactly like a gigged frog.

_Oh, hell._

Friendship sometimes means getting laughed at. Anzu repeats this to herself as she dives in, grabs him by the shoulders, wrenches him from Vivien's grip and sprints down the promenade. Yuugi trails behind her like a tugboat that forgot to untie itself from the Titanic, barely able to keep up with her longer stride, but she is _not_ carrying him. It'd be too much on top of everything else.

"Hey!"

"Come back here!"

"Yuugi-poo!"

"Aw, Anzu!" Jounouchi's incensed shout joins those of the girls.

Anzu tosses a reply over her shoulder. "Oh, blow it out your - "

Yuugi winces again.

The heels of Anzu's new sling-backs clackety-clack against the boards as they round a corner at breakneck speed –

- And then they're both bumping backwards as they run into a deceptively thin but sturdy chest. Anzu stops so hard she squashes her nose on a pectoral, and Yuugi canons into them both, ricocheting off the small of her back. All three bodies fall in a tangle of limbs and profanities.

A phalanx of bodyguards rushes to separate them.

_Oh, nutbunnies!_

Seto Kaiba stands up imperiously, readjusting a tie that looks completely wrong at the base of his long neck. You'd get almost the same effect by stuffing a timber wolf into Armani. He waves away the lumps of expensively suited muscle, and spends a short moment considering Anzu and Yuugi, who are still in a heap. He looks at them like they're something he just found crawling about in his salad.

"I always wanted you at my feet, Mutou, but you didn't have to be so pathetic as to bring your cheering section with you for _that_."

Anzu glares at him on Yuugi's behalf. The effect is somewhat ruined by the snarl of hair in her eyes. "Would it _kill_ you to be civil for once?"

Kaiba's expression shifts into a scowl without any apparent movement by the muscles in his face. As with all his scowls, it is as if he is trying to crack an invisible walnut using his eyebrows alone. "You two ran into _me_."

"We're sorry," Yuugi puts in, as Kaiba probably knew he would. Bastard. Yuugi's cheeks are bright scarlet. "We were just …"

"Escaping the heathen masses," Anzu mutters.

"Uh-huh." Kaiba's voice holds a note of both disbelief and derision.

Anzu summons another biting retort, and then suddenly becomes aware of the compromising position she and Yuugi have ended up in thanks to the less-than-gentle ministrations of Kaiba's goons. Bracing herself to break her fall has set them in a sort of clinch, with Yuugi underneath her, propped up on one arm, the other against her shoulder to stop her squashing him after one goon shoved her sideways. Her knees are interlinked with his, and her skirt is riding up. The effect is that of an interrupted steamy embrace.

Hastily, they disentangle themselves and jump to their feet. Anzu's cheeks also start to burn, like a mistakenly bombed oilfield.

She wants to smack that smug little smirk right off Kaiba's face, whether they're on his turf on not, but she can hear female voices and many footsteps approaching, and the telltale wheeze of Jounouchi trying to run after someone's kicked him in the nuts. And she doesn't even want to _go_ to the place where she has to explain how she can recognise what that sounds like.

Grabbing Yuugi's hand, she treats Kaiba to a look that could strip chrome off steel, and then bolts again, like a knight in shining armour spiriting a fair damsel from the clutches of a dragon after thieves have pinched the white charger.

* * *

****

**Saturday**

The ceiling fan rotates in the heavy air, making a strange, synthetic sound, almost like the beat of a swan's wings in flight. It's just circulating the heat, though. Nobody was really prepared for how _hot_ it is, even though they were warned. It's marginally cooler inside the hotel, but in the same way that a Sherman tank is only marginally less dangerous than a cruise missile. The air is stifling, thick as custard and almost _lumpy_ with emotion.

"Yuugi?" Anzu says tentatively. He didn't answer when she knocked, and though she opened the door anyway, like a vampire she feels she can't enter until she has permission.

Somewhere downstairs the others have gathered for their evening meal. She can imagine the usual chaotic scene, and it's better than imagining what's more probable – aching silence, loss of appetite, glancing towards a chair twice-unoccupied.

Not that being up here is any easier, but at least this way she feels like she's being active and not just wallowing. The memory of Jounouchi's grip on her arm is reminder enough that she's done quite enough of that today. His fingers have actually left small bruises, telling her more plainly than words that he had wanted to run forward just as much as she had, but had restrained himself. Only she had faltered. Only her resolve had weakened.

She absently massages the bruises as she speaks. "Yuugi, are you … do you want to come and have something to eat?"

Yuugi is standing by the window – a narrow affair with no glass but a thin piece of gauze that can be strung across to keep out insects. The entire room has an overwhelming bronzed effect – brown walls, brown furniture, brown hangings – as if it, too, has been burnt by the sun that turned Jounouchi's neck angry red when he forgot to put on enough sunscreen. It is all they can afford, given they didn't plan on staying as long as they've actually needed to. Yuugi stands out terribly amidst the earthy palette, a bright but lonely figure, like something in a painting titled 'the one left behind'.

He doesn't answer Anzu's question. She clears her throat, unsure whether to retreat or come fully into the room, committing herself to something she perhaps isn't equipped to deal with.

Then Yuugi shifts a shoulder. It's a tiny movement, but it draws her towards him. She leaves the door partly open, not even sure why she's done it. Escape, maybe? Some misguided hope that one of the others will come and do this instead of her? Jounouchi would know what to say. He always knows what to say, even when he doesn't. He is, after all, Yuugi's best friend. They've traded souls for each other's safety, run into burning buildings, nearly drowned and done all sorts of other crazy things in the name of their friendship. It's cemented so deep in each of them that an a-bomb couldn't weaken it. Yes, Jounouchi would know how to deal with this better than her.

But that's stupid. She's the Friendship Queen. She's been Yuugi's friend practically since the beginning. They've been through a lot together, some of it nice, and some of it heartbreaking. True, her demonstrations aren't as dramatic as Jounouchi's, but friendship isn't based on how theatrical you are. It's about the feeling _under _the displays. She and Yuugi were there for each other long before Honda or Jounouchi came on the scene. Isn't she the one who was there for him when his father died? Isn't he the one who comforted her when her parents' divorce came through? She can handle this. She _can_.

She tries not to think about all those times when they were younger, when she turned her back on him because she was frightened of their friendship; when Mikata Teki and her ilk made her feel like she was doing something _wrong_ by hanging out with him. She tries not to remember Yuugi's face every time she broke off meeting with him, too terrified of just what he was offering her to accept it. The _depth _of Yuugi's friendship was far more than she could handle at that age, and it was only at high school, when faced with losing him to someone else – someone _better_ – that she better got to grips with what a valuable thing it is. She tries not think of any of that.

_I can handle this. I can. It's Yuugi, not a monster. **Yuugi!**_

"Anzu…" Yuugi murmurs, not turning around.

She prickles, like she's full of static. "Yeah, Yuugi?"

"I did the right thing, didn't I?" He sounds uncertain, the events of the day crashing over his mind like a slow-building wave.

He had to be strong before the duel, to make Yami – _No, Atemu, that's his name. Not Yami. Not Yuugi. Atemu_ – feel like he didn't need to stay. To give his soul freedom, Yuugi had to prove that he could stand up on his own, that he didn't require a crutch to save him from life's difficulties anymore. Directly after the duel was over, he'd been distraught, but also elated. Atemu could go home now – they'd all helped him find his true identity. It would've been cruel to then force him to give up all he'd learned and regained and fought for, just so they could enjoy his company. He would've outlasted them all, seen them all age, wither and die; and then he would've been alone again. It was too heartless to contemplate. Like everyone, Anzu saw the figures waiting for him on the other side of the door. He was watching them as he passed through, not looking back. He, at least, knew where he belonged, and didn't let regret clog that knowledge.

He's back where he belongs now. He is. Spirits can't exist in the mortal world. Yuugi said as much during the Ceremonial Duel.

Still, there's a big difference between knowing something and living with it.

"He couldn't stay," she says.

Yuugi nods, a quick up-and-down jerk that barely lifts his chin off his chest. "I know."

The walk back from the tomb was suffused with a sense of suspended grief. They were all waiting for Yuugi – the closest to Atemu – to crack first. They didn't do this because they wanted him to be miserable, but because only Yuugi had the power to give permission for them to also mourn a friend who had, effectively, died. Atemu's body died thousands of years ago, but a second death is no less painful for those it leaves behind – it loses nothing by not being the first, the last, the only.

Yet Yuugi just walked in silence, face unreadable, and withdrew to his room the moment they returned to their hotel. After that everyone just felt numb, the way your mouth feels when you've had a tooth pulled but the effects of the jab haven't yet worn off – you know the pain is there, smothered under the anaesthetic, but it's not yet ready to dig into you with all its claws. When it does, however, it'll be no fun at all.

"It … it feels weird," Yuugi says. "In my head I know he's gone, but in my heart … it feels like he's just resting in the puzzle, like he does after duels sometimes. I feel like I could just call out to him and he'd come rushing back, like always … only he's not going to."

Anzu doesn't know what to say.

"He's never coming back again."

"No, he's not." The words are hasty and imperfect. She instantly regrets them.

She doesn't like how this whole situation makes her feel like a stranger to him. Others might feel like Yuugi is the stranger, with his miserable expression, and the sudden stranglehold he has on emotions he's usually so free with. Yet to Anzu it feels like she's the one who's never met him before; like she was recently introduced, and isn't yet qualified to say whether his behaviour is abnormal or not.

She once told Seto Kaiba that Yuugi's strength is his heart. Yuugi is wide open, allowing the world to see inside him as easily as he holds doors open for people walking behind him. It may be a disease as much as a blessing, but it's _him. _Yuugi is ludicrously pliant and tractable, but singular. Now his heart is shut up tight, and everything about him screams 'don't come anywhere _near_ me' as loudly as Mai actually _did_ when they met her in San Francisco. It makes Anzu feel like she doesn't know him at all. She feels like she's lost something incredibly important, which is just as wrenching as losing Atemu.

She is suddenly overtaken by a sense of duties unmet; a panicking sense that she has been remiss in something she didn't even know she is responsible for.

She wets her lips. They dry out so fast in this heat, and she's used up an entire lip balm since yesterday. Now instead of vanilla, all she can smell is dust and unhappiness. "You … you should eat something," she advises, hoping there's no quaver in her voice. "You can't … an empty stomach … downstairs …" Stringing a sentence together is difficult when your long intestine is doing the Riverdance. She pauses, gathers herself, and speaks again. "Yuugi -"

"I can't feel him," Yuugi cuts her off. His voice holds a sandpaper edge of desperation. "I try to, but it's like someone cut the string that was binding us. It's not connected anymore. All I can feel is myself – hear my own thoughts … bouncing off the walls … echoes. I'm … I'm all alone again. Permanently. This is it, now. This is what I have. I'd forgotten what it's like …" His shoulders are trembling.

The effect on Anzu is electric. She moves towards him, not even aware she's moving under the back of his clothes press against the front of hers. Her arms encircle Yuugi from behind and tighten, as though she's trying to contain his grief using her own body. Yuugi holds onto one of her arms with both hands, eventually leaning back into her embrace. His palms are sweaty, and there are grains of sand on them that bite uncomfortable into Anzu's bare skin. They're tiny things, but no less painful for their size.

She and he stand this way for what seems like hours, just taking solace from the touch of the other. Then the sobs come fully, coursing through Yuugi like dirty water, making him shudder, and shudder, and shudder.

Anzu imagined herself to be in love with Atemu for what seemed like all the time she was aware of him. She believed herself truly in love, and it was a dizzy, silly, confusing, confounding love. It made her crazy. It made her stupid. When he was just a voice, when he was Yami, when he was the Other Yuugi, _all _those times she felt it – love like a wave (frothy, always building), love like a wall (solid, well-built), love like a wheel (no beginning, no end), love like a whale. A giant love, in other words, possibly too big for her heart to contain. It was the biggest love she'd known in all her fifteen years, secret and cinnamon flavoured. A hot, sharp-shooting, sherbet love – that was what he inspired in her, and it made her breathless with every glimpse, every octave, every moment alone and every scrabbled titbit of information about him. He was like a drug – and like every user, Anzu was willing to do terrible things for a fix of him.

However, her love was unreciprocated – obviously so. Atemu made no pretence about it. He didn't feel what she felt, and that was that, but while he was around it was enough that she loved _him. _Shecould still get a buzz just from his presence. She was content with that.

Now, however …

Now she can no longer understand how she felt, or what her love consisted of. When she handed over the cartouche, when she saw him as he really was in the memory world, and even when Jounouchi gripped her arm to stop her running after him, she felt that fierce, peppery glow inside her.

And then suddenly it was gone, like someone turning electricity off at the mains, leaving her to examine her own emotions by candlelight. Without the incandescence of his presence to dazzle her, it's harder for her to pin down her love. She can't summon up how it looked or tasted or smelled. It has been lost, her love; pushed into a file, into a drawer, under the clothes in the old suitcase she's already started packing in adjoining room to this one. It's a memory, its contents like the words on a postcard read many years after a vacation is over. It's fallen between the folds of a badly closed umbrella – or perhaps a parasol, since they're in Egypt, where it's so hot the tears feel like they could evaporate right off your face. It has turned into infatuation, and it's impossible for infatuation to exist without something – _someone _– to feed off.

"It'll be O-Bon soon," she murmurs brokenly into Yuugi's hair. "We can – we can make chouchin … we can sail them down the canal for him. I'll teach you to dance the Nenbutsu … we'll all dance through the city … we'll honour him. We won't forget. It's not goodbye."

"But it is," Yuugi replies, agonizingly realistic. He clutches at her arm, pressing on Jounouchi's bruises and making her wince. "The goodbye's over. It's all over. He's gone. I sent him away -"

"Because you had to. You had no choice. It was the right thing to do."

Yuugi just cries, emotions unchained. He is wide open again, and as such he is hurting, plainly and wretchedly and unashamedly. His pain is genuine, it is raw, and it makes her want to cry, too.

Confronted with what his departure has done to her closest (one-time best and _only_) friend, Anzu feels almost like she could hate Atemu. She skirts around the feeling, breathing in the acrid scent, but pulls away again before she can fall in. Hatred is a deep well with slippery sides. Atemu did too much and became too important in all their lives to _ever_ be an object of hatred, but her love has left suds behind. A dirty bath-ring encircles her heart and makes all the deepest, sweetest sensations of yesterday seem ugly and pathetic. Atemu made Yuugi far happier than she ever saw in all their friendship. Leaving is the worst wound he could possibly inflict, and since Yuugi can't hate him, she takes the feeling into herself. She hoards it, as she once did her love – her foolish, selfish, unrequited love.

Anzu's love was a blob of phlegm on the high street of life – slippery and slimy and not especially useful. Her love was unreturned. It was cancelled. It is washed out.

It's over.

But Yuugi's bond with Atemu, his other half, his partner, will never be over – at least not in the way her bond is over. It will always remain with him, a tiny but niggling wrongness. It will be a piece of severed string in his pocket. It will be a permanently closed door at the end of a long corridor. Anzu wants nothing more than to cauterise the wound in Yuugi's soul, but she knows that nothing she can do will ever be enough.

All she _can_ do is be here for him. All she can be is another warm body for him to cling to in the here and now, to remind him that he isn't alone, that he has friends, that he has _her_, and she will always fight for him in the same way that Atemu always fought for him. She can't be the one he wants, she can't be who he needs, but she can at least be _something_.

She can be his friend.

"It was the right thing to do. It'll be okay, Yuugi. You'll be all right. You did the right thing. You did…"

**

* * *

**

**Sunday**

Why is it that all airport departure lounges Anzu has been in smell of disinfectant and cinnamon buns? She gets flashes of some disgruntled employee spiking the bakery as she checks her bags in and waits in the ticket line.

When she mentions it, Jounouchi wrinkles his nose and announces that actually, he really wants a cinnamon bun – and of course Honda has to get in on the act as soon as he realises food is in the offing. Anzu's mother and Omishi, her boyfriend (present because Mr. Mazaki has once again been chained to his desk at the office) offer to buy one for everyone, and walk off with the two boys romping around them like excited toddlers. Anzu swears her mother winks at her as they leave.

Which leaves her and Yuugi sitting on the uncomfortable plastic chairs, listening to uncomfortable plastic muzak and trying not to eavesdrop on the uncomfortable plastic conversations around them. Some guy in an ill-fitting suit is bellowing into his cell phone while tapping a laptop, and a student-y looking girl has her nose buried in the latest Harry Potter right across from them. Neither seems particularly interested in the two teenagers. Everyone else is on the move, and Anzu spends a few moments contemplating where each of them is heading.

Eventually Yuugi clears his throat. "So," he says, "I guess this is it."

"Well, not until I get to the gate. But yeah, I guess so."

"I'm … we're really going to miss you, you know."

She notices the alteration and shifts in her seat. It's not the first time he's said it, nor, she thinks, will it be the last. "I'll miss all of you, too, but it's not like I'm going away forever. I'll be back at Christmas."

"That's a long time…" For a second Yuugi sounds forlorn, but then he injects energy back into his voice using a hypodermic he was keeping in his pocket for just such an eventuality. "But that'll be great. You can tell us what Americans do for Christmas.

"I hear they spend all their time and money buying gifts for each other, and then stick them under trees instead of opening them."

"Yeah, I heard that too. I also heard some of them stay up until midnight to light candles and sing songs. I wonder why."

"Making up for lost time, I suppose. Otogi says it's not a very friendly place the rest of the year."

"That was … nice of him."

"No it wasn't, but it was true to character." Anzu shrugs. "I'd rather not go into things blind, anyhow."

"But you wouldn't be going if you thought it was all bad."

"No, I'm not expecting it to be a _total_ misery, but I'm not expecting to walk onto the set of _Fame _either. Which is a shame, because I look good in legwarmers." She manages a wan smile.

Yuugi frowns, no doubt trying to recall the movie. They watched a dubbed version once, when they were too young to understand half of what happened. Anzu has since rented a subtitled version, but on Honda's request chose not to inflict it on her friends. They're already pretty good about her choices on movie nights – or as good as a bunch of red-blooded males _can_ be about watching romantic comedies.

"I thought … Fame was the sad one."

Ah, so he _does _remember it. Most people think only of the infamous theme song and dancing on cars when they think of _Fame_, but it's actually quite a gloomy piece of cinema, all about dreams that don't work out and dreamers that dare and then fall anyway.

"Bad example," Anzu says quickly. "Anyway, moving on, someone from the academy is set to meet me when I arrive. I'm quite looking forward to seeing my name on a piece of cardboard – and in _English_. How many people can say they're wanted like that?"

"You'll always be wanted here, too," Yuugi replies. "You shouldn't forget that. I don't want to sound like a total downer, but if anything happens … if anything goes wrong, or doesn't work out the way you want it to … we'll be here for you. Okay? Right here. And we'll help in whatever way we can."

The conversation, already tottering, goes onto life support. A long silence ensues.

"Thanks, Yuugi. You're a real friend." Another wan smile graces Anzu's face. "It's weird. Everyone always says I'm the Friendship Queen, but you … you actually live this stuff. You don't just talk about it. I think back about all the things you've done for people … all the things we've been through together – all of us. And not just the big stuff, either, but the little things. Like how you always save the last of your fries for Jounouchi and Honda at McDonalds, or how you waited with a box of cream puffs outside Ryou's apartment until he was ready to talk to people, or how you go clothes shopping with me even though you hate it – or how you turned up alone to my dance revue that time. Remember that?"

"Do I ever." Yuugi's expression turns rueful. "I was _so _grounded when I got home; I thought I'd never get to see the sun again. I don't know _what _I was thinking when I tried to fool my parents."

Anzu smiles. "That's the thing, though, Yuugi; you _don't _think about it. If one of your friends is in trouble, or upset, you just do whatever it takes to make them feel better. You're kind without thinking about it. You don't over-contemplate things, you don't dwell on nasty stuff, and you don't second-guess yourself – you're so genuine it … it kind of shocks people. They don't expect anyone like you to really exist. People are always so caught up in their own thing, thinking about their own problems and working the world from their own angle, that they forget there's another way of living. And then, suddenly, there _you _are. All sort of … pure. Aw, man, that sounds corny, but you've got to understand Yuugi – not many people look at the world the way you do. They see things in terms of themselves, and even when they _do _help others, they're generally doing it because they stand to gain something, or because they'll feel bad if they don't. Nobody's _truly _altruistic. But you? You're … different."

Yuugi says nothing. Then, after a few moments, he whips his head up. "Anzu, are you … _crying_?"

She scrubs at her eyes with the heels of her hands. "Sorry, I'm being such a girl. It's just that … this might be the last time I see you for a long time, and … there's still all this _stuff _I need to say."

Yuugi's eyes light up, but dim again as she goes on.

"I don't think I ever really thanked you for being in my life."

"Excuse me?"

"Yuugi, do you remember what kind of person I was before we became friends?"

"You were always nice -"

"No, I wasn't. I was horrible. I was mean to you so many times; and that was when I wasn't just outright ignoring you because I thought it'd hurt my social status to be seen sharing your air. I was Mini McBitchlet, and all I wanted was to be like everyone else. What I wanted, more than anything, was to be _popular_, to be _admired _by people, and I was willing to trample on the feelings of others to get that. It was almost _expected_ if you wanted to hang out with that crowd."

"You weren't all that bad -"

"Obviously you bought some rose-tinted glasses recently, because it so totally was. But then – and I'm still not completely sure how it happened – we _did_ become friends, and even though I don't always show it properly, I'm so much happier because of it. I actually think I'm a better person, too. Did I tell you I saw Mikata Teki the other day?"

Yuugi shakes his head at the mention of Anzu's one-time best friend – although the term can be used only in its loosest sense, since Mikata dropped Anzu like one of Galileo's experiments when she befriended Yuugi. "No. How is she?"

"No clue. She just blew right past me in the street, nose all the way up here. I could see right up her nostrils – yeuch." Anzu pantomimes an absurdly aristocratic bearing, which makes Yuugi snigger despite himself. "My point is, Yuugi, Mikata's just the same as she ever was. She hasn't grown, and for all she's more fashionable and more popular than anyone in _our_ group (with the possible exceptions of Ryou and Otogi, and even then we're talking _fangirls_, which I still maintain don't even qualify as _human_), her heart's still all small and shrivelled. She doesn't have the ability to appreciate people for who they are, and not what they can do for _her_. I do. And it's because … it's because of _you_ that I can … oh hell." Fresh tears fill Anzu's eyes. She wipes furiously at them while digging in her pockets for a tissue.

Yuugi hands over a handkerchief that was a present from his mother last birthday. It has 'Yuugi' elegantly embroidered in one corner, and little duel monsters in each of the three remaining corners. The thought that went into it was predominantly because she was too busy in Prague to make it to the celebrations. Mrs. Mutou has smashed more glass ceilings than Anzu has eaten hot dinners. Anzu stares at the hankie for a second, and then wipes her eyes in the centre, away from the embroidery, trying not to smudge her mascara too much.

"Yuugi, I am who I am because of _you_ – because of what you've given me. And I'm so worried, because what if I revert to type when I'm not around you? You've changed so much since I first met you. I mean, just look at you! You used to have all the self-esteem of a soggy cardboard box, and now you've saved the world … what, twice? Three times? More?"

"That was Atemu - "

"No, it wasn't. He might have played the card game, or held up the cartouche, or whatever, but it always came down to you, Yuugi. You and him. He said it himself – you gave him the strength to carry on. You didn't see what a mess he was when you weren't around. I did. Trust me; I know what I'm talking about. He needed you, and it was only when you two stopped needing each other so much you couldn't stand upright on your own that he was able to go home." She stops. Talking about Atemu is always hard, but not as hard as it used to be. She doesn't feel like she's slicing her tongue on the words anymore. Still, she sometimes still looks at Duel Monsters cards at the game store and sees his ferocious smile and the brutal tilt of his eyebrows reflected in the protective plastic.

Atemu encapsulates both the best and worst of her. He was the catalyst that brought their group together, and she'd never be without them now, even if they are all a little damaged. He was also the one who stirred a lot of complex feelings in her, which she's both grateful for and resentful of. If he had never come along, she would never have become so close to her friends. If he had never come along, she would never have treated them so badly trying to get _at _him.

She starts off again, winding herself up like a clockwork mouse, a watch, one of those music boxes with the little ever-twirling ballerina. "That's what I mean when I say you've changed. You're more independent now. You don't need to lean on people like you used to – you don't need to hide behind them. You're the you that you were always meant to be. But I … damn it. This is hard to say without sounding completely selfish. Yuugi, you don't need _me_ the way you used to. You haven't needed me that way for a long time. Our friendship's changed over the years, and I'm okay with that. I get that you needed a male best friend, and I get that you needed other guys to hang out with. I'm not stupid. I get that I can't dominate your attention the way I used to when we were kids and only had each other. But the thing is, I still need _you _the way I always did. I need you to … to remind me who I am! What if, in New York, I turn back into Mini McBitchlet, and when Christmas comes you don't recognise me anymore? I hate the thought that I'm not who I think I am, and it … it _scares _me. I don't want to be that girl again."

Yuugi is quiet for a second. "Then don't be," he says.

"What?"

"If there's one thing I've learned since I solved the Millennium Puzzle, it's that you choose your own destiny. Anzu, I think you're giving me too much credit for what _you've _done. If you're not the person you used to be, then it's because you _chose_ to be this way – just like Jounouchi and Honda chose. They used to be petty thugs, now they're heroes who helped save the world."

"But Yuugi - "

"You never needed _me_ to be who you are, Anzu." He reaches out and lays his hand over hers, and for a second she thinks that maybe he's right, maybe she doesn't have to worry about stupid junk like that – she can take control of her own life – of her own _destiny_, even. Yuugi is looking at her so intently that it would feel like a betrayal of all they've been through _not _to believe him.

But there are still some niggly little doubts at the back of her brain. This is what she's worried about, this force Yuugi can exert over her to make her feel better about herself. Without him around, how is she supposed to be who he thinks she is?

"You can't _force_ someone to be your friend," Yuugi goes on. "If I did anything for you – if I gave you anything, it's only what you gave me in return when you chose to become my friend. And you did choose. That's something you did all on your own – something for which _I'm_ grateful. I'm just as scared as you of what I'd be if I didn't have friends to lean on – and we'll always be there for you to lean on, Anzu. _I'll_ always be there for you to lean on, no matter what. You're wrong when you say I don't need to lean on people anymore. I'm not superhuman. I'm not even special anymore, now Atemu's gone. I'm just regular old me, and I can fall down and worry about not being who people think I am just as easily as you. That's what friendship's all about – being there for each other in the good _and_ the bad."

The good _and _the bad … that's something Mikata and Those Girls never got. That's what Anzu realised so long ago, in the little community centre they bulldozed last year to make room for an upmarket sushi restaurant.

The atmosphere around them crackles strangely. Anzu feels quite odd, staring into Yuugi's eyes like this – like he's reaching down into her soul and running his thumb along it in a comforting motion, just like his real thumb on her real hand. It feels nice, but also sort of … scary?

Scary? Being with _Yuugi_? Yuugi, who held her hair out of her face when they were eleven and she ate so much Pocky she threw up for almost an hour? Yuugi, who's seen her cry so hard she can't breathe – who held her hand right after her parents split up and other mothers at school whispered and pointed at her? Yuugi, whom she's seen battered and bloody after bullies got through with him – who can't even bring himself to swat a spider, and clung so desperately to her when his father died? She's seen him at his lowest and most pathetic. She's defended him, mothered him, brushed over him and mistreated him, and he's forgiven her for everything. How the hell is it even possible to be scared of _him_? Just him, no psychotic dead pharaoh with his mind crushing magic hovering in the wings. How is that _possible_?

Still, her stomach suddenly shoots to the floor, bounces up and hits the ceiling, and continues yo-yoing between the two for almost half a minute. "Yuugi?"

Yuugi's gaze is so steady that Anzu actually flinches at it. Somehow his face has moved very close to her own. She can smell the Kompeito he ate in the car on the way to the airport. "Anzu," he murmurs, "I -"

"Hey, guys!" Jounouchi yells from across the airport lounge, jumping up and down to see over the crowds of people. "Anzu! Yuugi! You two will never believe how big these frikkin' cinnamon buns are! I could sail home on one of these babies! We got one for each of you, so I hope you're hungry!"

Anzu's spine snaps upright. "Damn it. I'll kill him," she mutters, as a nerve catches and a warm pain explodes in her neck. It fades quickly, but the sudden intrusion has ruined the air of confidence and truth-telling and turned it back into one of imminent departure in Domino airport.

Laptop Guy's shouted conversation seems louder than ever, and though Harry Potter girl has moved off, a family of tourists speaking rapidly in an unknown language has replaced her. Thoughts tumble back into Anzu's head – tickets and passports and exchange rates and time differences. Her mind is suddenly clogged with the practical, and the special moment dissolves like cigarette smoke in front of a fan.

Yuugi is slumped in his seat, his hand having snapped back into his lap at Jounouchi's shout.

Espying both Jounouchi and Honda approaching, and knowing that her mother won't be far behind, bringing with her motherly worry and no opportunity to say all the things she needs to say to her friends, Anzu turns quickly to Yuugi and pulls him to his feet in a furious, awkward hug. She doesn't just embrace him, but clings to him, as tight as she did after the duel with Dartz. She's like a drowning person.

"Yuugi, you really are the best friend I could ever have."

It takes a moment, but Yuugi slowly raises his hands and pats her on the back.

When she releases him she's crying again, though she can't say why.

Yuugi looks up at her, silent. It's a strange sort of silence, in that he doesn't say nothing, so much as he deliberately doesn't say _something_ – but Anzu is too caught up in turning to greet the others to fully appreciate this. There's far more to be read into this action than either of them is equipped to recognise.

"Whoa, no need to get all weepy. If I'd known you liked cinnamon buns so much, I'd have bought more."

"Jounouchi, shut up."

* * *

_Games, changes and fears -  
Where will they go from here?  
When will they stop?  
I believe that fate has brought us here  
And we should be together,  
But we're not.  
I play it off but I'm dreaming of you,  
I'll keep it cool but I'm finding,  
I try to say goodbye and I choke,  
I try to walk away and I stumble;  
Though I try to hide it, it's clear  
My world crumbles when you are not near._

-- From _I Try_, by Macy Gray.

* * *

**FINIS.**

* * *

_In fact, she hasn't felt so bad since last Thursday, when Mikata Teki pulled her chair out from under her after the teacher asked Anzu to read in class._

-- Mikata Teki is a secondary character who made her debut in my old fanfic _Dandelion Days_, and appeared again in _Reality Always Knocks Twice_. I suppose that makes her a recurring character, and if you'd like to know more about her part in the beginning of Anzu and Yuugi's friendship then go right ahead and read those fics, but they're not imperative to understand the role she plays in this one. Or at least, they're not if I've been doing my job properly.

_If you fall behind you're left behind._

-- Side-fling to _Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl._

_Honestly, if they applied themselves to their studies the way they nagged at her they'd get scholarships into Keio, no problem._

-- By Keio, Anzu means Keio University, in Tokyo. It and Waseda University are widely regarded as the two most well-known universities in Japan (sort of tantamount to talking about Oxford, Cambridge or Harvard, as I understand it).

"_Jounouchi says I should start charging money from every person who asks me that."_

-- Taken from the first episode of _Buffy: The Vampire Slayer_, Season Six. Buffy says it.

_If she'd gone at that moment, that **second**, she would've missed the arrival of her anger … And with that she rounds on the bed with sudden fury. _

-- Boosted from _Lucy Sullivan is Getting Married_, by Marian Keyes.

_Yuugi, who looks exactly like a gigged frog._

-- According to Nemain, one of my all-time favourite fan-authors, gigging a frog involves shining a bright torch at it so that it freezes (like rabbits, they're paralysed easily), and then impaling it on a long stake, sort of like an amphibian-murder-based litter-jabber.

_After that everyone just felt numb, the way your mouth feels when you've had a tooth pulled but the effects of the jab haven't worn off yet._

-- Taken from _In Your Dreams_, by Tom Holt.

_Then the sobs come fully, coursing through Yuugi like dirty water, making him shudder, and shudder, and shudder. _

-- Partly taken from _Fingersmith_, by Sarah Waters.

_Anzu imagined herself to be in love with Atemu … slippery and slimy and not especially useful._

-- The phraseology of this entire section was heavily influenced by the novel _Wide Open,_ by Nicola Barker.

"_It'll be O-Bon soon." _

-- (Info taken from Wikipedia) O-Bon, or only Bon, is a Japanese Buddhist holiday to honor the departed spirits of one's ancestors. This Buddhist festival has evolved into a family reunion holiday during which people from the big cities return to their home towns and visit and clean their ancestors' graves. Traditionally including a dance festival, it has existed in Japan for more than 500 years. It is held from 13th of July to the 15th ('Welcoming O-Bon' and 'Farewell O-Bon' respectively) in the eastern part of Japan (Kanto), and in August in the western part. In recent years, however, most parts of Tokyo, and by extension, the media, hold O-Bon in August to coincide with the summer holiday period. O-Bon shares some similarities with the predominantly Mexican observance of _el Día de los Muertos_.

"_We can – we can make chouchin … we can sail them down the canal for him."_

-- Anzu's talking about _Toro Nagashi _here, which is the floating of paper lanterns (chouchin) on the last evening of O-Bon, to guide the spirits of the departed back to the other world. The white lanterns are for those who have died in the past year. It is believed that we come from water, so the lanterns represent our bodies returning to water (the sea). Once again, many thanks to Wikipedia for this information.

"_I'll teach you to dance the Nenbutsu … we'll all dance through the city … we'll honour him. We won't forget. It's not goodbye."_

-- (Info taken from Wikipedia) _Bon Odori_ (meaning simply _Bon dance_) is an event held during O-Bon. It is celebrated as a reminder of the gratefulness one should feel toward the dead, especially one's ancestors. Originally a _Nenbutsu_ folk dance to express the effusive welcome toward the spirits of the dead, the style of celebration varies in some aspects from region to region, but I've gone with _Nenbutsu_ for Domino since I couldn't find any indication of where Takahashi intended the city to actually _be_ in Japan.

_Why is it that all airport departure lounges Anzu has been in smell of disinfectant and cinnamon buns?_

-- Inspired by an episode of _8 Simple Rules_.

… _Or how you waited with a box of cream puffs outside Ryou's apartment until he was ready to talk to people._

-- According to the YGO Guide bulgy (written by Kazuki Takahashi and so considered the only true form of canon besides the manga and anime), cream puffs are Ryou's favourite food.

_She can smell the Kompeito he ate in the car on the way to the airport._

-- Kompeito are little sugar balls, covered in tiny bulges that make them look a bit like stars. They're a popular sweetie in Japan, though they actually originate from 15th/16th Century Portugal (_Kompeito _comes from the Portuguese word _confeito_, which means a sugar candy). The closest western counterpart I can think of are Nerds (http/ en . wikipedia . org / wiki / Nerds), and even then that's not completely accurate.


End file.
